


The Spider Over the Fire

by 35_leukothea



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e01 In My Time of Dying, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-19
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/35_leukothea/pseuds/35_leukothea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of first-hand narrations accounting certain events in the lives of two soldiers, two best friends, two brothers.</p><p>
  <i>Your wickedness makes you…heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf…and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I started writing these on a whim and decided I liked them enough to post them. I have four or so more in the making, three with Dean and one with Sam, but for the love of god, please do not hold me to that. It is highly likely that I will get stuck somewhere in this project just like I have with all the others and never update it again. Apologies. Please enjoy the two that are up though!

"Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider’s web would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God’s enemies.

....

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours."

—Jonathan Edwards, _Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God_


	2. In My Time of Dying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A narration of 2.01 "In My Time of Dying." Sam's point of view.

Plenty of things are over before you get a chance to truly recognize the satisfaction or the joy they gave you. Good books or movies, morning solitude, your room being perfectly clean and organized. Then when they're gone you've got a tiny little hole in you, nagging and nagging, and you can't figure out how it got there. Jess told me that once—I know people say karma's a bitch, but coincidence is pretty damn up there too.

I don't know what to do with myself right now. Dad's in one room, Dean's in another. Somehow I barely got scratched while my brother's fucking comatose, but I'd trade places with him in a heartbeat. Why would I do that? I can't decide. I ran away, I left him, Dad, the life. And now that I've been shoved back in, shouldn't I be resentful? Shouldn't I hate it? I do hate it, somewhere in me, because of Jess, and Mom, and Dad, and now this—but for some reason I'm running back in when I was so determined to leave not all that long ago. I know that not everything can make sense, because then it'd be way too easy, but I just wish that stuff not making sense wasn't so _hard_.

Dad's woken up, he sent me to get the Colt and some other stuff out of the car before Bobby took a look at it and got some things he asked for. Bobby says it probably can't be fixed, but I wouldn't let him trash it, at least not right then.

(You hear that, Dean? I saved the Impala! You get out of that fucking coma, alright, and fix your goddamn car! Don't make me come get you.)

Bobby also says the things Dad wants are for a spell—a demon-summoning spell.

I love being lied to. Almost as much as I love arguing!

 

* * *

 

I don't know as much about spirits as Dean or my father, but I do know that water glasses don't tip over by themselves. Unless we've got a Matilda, in which case, of course, I am Matilda, and I'm pretty sure I can't do that.

It's embarrassing, but if Dean—if Dean's spirit is here, and he can knock over water glasses, then maybe I can find a way to communicate. An albeit childish, foolish way, but a way. And it works! I'm surprised, but it does. I keep thinking about our last encounter with a reaper, and how Dean was sick that time, too, except now the reaper has its own free will and thinks it's his time of dying. Well, it's not. It won't be. I won't let it be.

 

* * *

 

No. No, no, no—God, please, no. I am hiding behind the door because I can't look. I feel like I'm drowning in my fear, I can't breathe, my eyes and throat and lungs are burning, my whole body aches, because I am useless and I am so, so scared. People die every day, every minute, every second—somebody died in this very room. But my brother is not “people,” and my brother will not be brushed away as “somebody,” just another one of the billions who have passed, because he is _better_ than _everyone_ , and he is a _hero_.

And then suddenly, it stops. Or, rather, it begins again.

Nobody really gets it, and only the doctors care. Not that a whole lot of people would be interested anyway, but I bet that reaper's pissed, and serves it right. Dean doesn't remember, and there's not a whole lot I can tell him, because if he himself can't recall how he did it, then we'll probably never know. If I close my eyes I can pretend what's happening is almost normal, but my pulse still won't calm down. Dad and I argue, because we don't know each other anymore and it passes the time. He asks me to get him coffee, and I almost laugh before deciding I can't risk making him angrier.

It's funny that I forgot about his summoning spell too, but I don't laugh at that. Because after one of those nagging gaps is filled, another one takes its place, one that makes less sense and hurts in a way you can't figure out. This one now accompanies the permanent ones, the ones that I know will never go away, and it confuses me most. But I'm a hunter again, so I push those to the back of my mind and focus on the rift that's just been closed, since he's actually alive. He's so much more upset than I am, and for some reason that I don't know, he seems to be blaming himself. Which makes no sense, because Dean did not cause Dad's death.

And while I don't regret saving Dean's car—he never would've forgiven me if I hadn't—I'm starting to think that if I don't get him out from under it soon, he might never quit tinkering with it and never face the fact that our father is dead, we lost the Colt, and we have no leads. He dragged me back into hunting, and I'm just returning the favor. But I'm not too worried—he'll wake up soon.


	3. Swan Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A narration of 5.22 "Swan Song." Sam's point of view.

Yes, or no. The choice is very simple, yet somehow, not at all. For some people it’s simple, I guess. For Jimmy it was simple, so simple he made the same decision twice, even after what happened with his family. Unfortunately, Jimmy Novak and I are not very much alike.

I regret a lot of things. I regret trusting Ruby and Eva. I regret letting innocent people die. I regret not telling Jess about those nightmares. I regret being born, in all honesty. I can think of at least three people who would've had much happier lives if I hadn't. But before, I've only once ever regretted something enough to want to die, and that was partially the demon talking anyway. Never being born, that's one thing, but dying is very, very different.

Tomorrow, I am going to die.

At first, it was no. No, no, _hell_ no, how could it ever be anything _but_ no? There wasn't even a question. In my brother's indelicate words, life as an angel condom didn't sound fun. Jimmy said that hosting Castiel had been like being chained to a comet, and if that's Cas—kind, considerate, relatively _normal_ Cas—then I can barely imagine what it would be like with an archangel. What it _will_ be like with an archangel. The devil, specifically! And then to proceed to jump us both back into the pit. It took a long time for me to come to that decision, but when I did, I felt so sure it was the right thing to do that I had no idea how I'd ever refused in the first place. Dean blew a fuse the first time I suggested saying yes. He didn't hate the idea—he abhorred it. Even now, he still thinks it's a last resort, all the way at the bottom of the list of things we can do. Which, I might add, is very short. He's still so intent on getting through this mess by the skin of our teeth, like we've done with everything else before. I hate this phrase with the very essence of my being, but he's...he's in denial, frankly.

But I'm not. We're not cutting this one close, not with so much at risk. One person does one little thing, and so many others are spared suffering. The entire human race is not going to pay for my stubbornness. I've caused enough damage as it is, and it's not like I'm in any way important. There's no good reason why I shouldn't do this.

And there's Dean's voice in my head, trying to push away the truth. There's a reason, all right, but nobody said anything about it being good, or sane, or even plausible. Where there's a will, there's a way. Team Free Will, huh, just the three of us. That makes me the ex-blood junkie.

(I regret that too.)

But maybe this will make up for all of that. I get hold of Lucifer, shove him back in his cage, stop the apocalypse. Easy. Dean and Bobby and Adam go home safe. The angels head back upstairs. The Earth doesn't fucking _burn_. I can at least do that. _I_ know I can. I don't know if Dean thinks I can't because he really doesn't believe it, or because he doesn't want to let me. I have never met anyone who is so afraid of the prospect of being alone as my brother. A lot of people find freedom, or peace, or enjoyment in solitude, but for him, even the thought of it must be torture, because he steers away from it like it's the iceberg that's going to sink the Titanic. Maybe Cas will stay with him afterwards, who knows. Maybe he'll keep his word and go find Lisa. Don't suppose it matters at this point, though, because it's a little late for second-guessing. We've got four rings, a helpless angel, a planet to save, a bucketful of willpower and nothing to fucking lose. We've got one shot, and if we blow it—if _I_ blow it—that's it. Game over.

I don't think Dean really believes in “game over”—I mean, he sold his goddamn soul for a restart—but it doesn't get any realer than this. End of the line, brother; you and me or Lucifer and Michael. Someone's gotta blink.

I feel like if I were a normal person, accepting death and quite likely an eternity of pain and suffering after jumping headfirst into _Hell_ , I'd be freaking out right now, but I'm not. If anything, I'm calm. I am the calm before the storm, and it feels right. I guess I always knew I was going to die young—you never get away from hunting, not really, and recently, I've come to admire the people who haven't tried. How were they so strong as to know they couldn't run away? How did they keep from fooling themselves into thinking they could hide? Time and time again, I've shoved this life behind me, and somehow, when I turn the next corner, it's always there again. Once you're in, there's no escaping it, and when you try, all that happens is people get hurt. Your one exit is death, and even then, not many of us get much relief from it. It's kind of like a demon deal that way, isn't it? Ironic. Haven't had enough of those lately.

But you know what? Fuck it. I'm taking that exit. Those four rings are my fiery red light at the end of the tunnel, and if I'm going out, there's no better way to do it than this. So yes, Dean, I will die tomorrow, and I know that some of you will die with me, because family is all you have. But do me a favor and leave it that way, alright? Just know I died doing what's right and trying to fix my mistakes, because I may regret many things, but this isn't gonna be one of them.


End file.
